HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING: Bound Brook's advantage must be quelled

Because of an illness, The Trentonian is unable to present its full two-page weekly wrestling package until next Tuesday. The good news is the New Jersey team and individual rankings are now up and running.

From a state-wide perspective, the biggest story over the last week had to be the 49-9 thumping Bound Brook put on Kittatiny Saturday. To understand the magnitude of this rout, consider that Kittatinny the previous night destroyed High Point, which has posted a bunch of competitive scores against some of the top teams in the state.

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Suffice it to say, there hasn’t been anything like this since Phillipsburg floated the petition trying to put the clamps on Ralph “The Renegade’’ Ross’ Highland team back in the 1990s.

Although we are in no way implying Bound Brook is doing something illegal or unethical, this has to stop. Well armed with wrestlers who aren’t even from the Bound Brook school district because of their “special’’ school status, the Babbling Brookers have such a competitive edge it destroys the whole hierarchy of sports.

Especially when you consider Bound Brook is still called a Group I despite its ability to draw wrestlers from over the place. This isn’t a high school team. It’s more like an all-star club team. Furthermore, this isn’t going to stop any time soon because Bound Brook has just two seniors in its lineup.

Challenge Bound Brook about all of this and they come up with some nonsense about wrestlers going to their school because of its academics. If that’s the case, how come Bound Brook is ranked something like 300th out of around 350 New Jersey public schools by the New Jersey Monthly Website?

Making it even tougher to take is a growing number of obnoxious Bound Brook fans who are now all of a sudden experts on the sport despite the fact most of them probably never saw a wrestling match until their school started bringing in more transfers than a New York subway.

The only solution is to put all the choice schools and parochial teams in their own separate bracket. Anything else is akin to telling the other public schools they are screwed and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it.

AREA STUFF

Because of skin issues at North Hunterdon, its match for No. 1 in the area against Hunterdon Central was postponed last week and will now take place on Jan. 17.

In terms of milestones, Voorhees recorded its 500th victory Friday and Delran coach Dennis “The Menace’’ Smith is now at 600 and counting.

The fact that Voorhees got to 500 against Delaware Valley had to make it even more special. These two schools had a great rivalry going when Vince “Ayatollah’’ Fitz coached DelVal and Bob “Fireball’’ Hall was at Voorhees.

Relations really haven’t improved — you could say they have gotten worse — now that their sons, Andy Fitz and Eric Hall, are in charge of the respective programs.

Believe it or not, Voorhees had not beaten DelVal since Bob Hall’s last year, in 1998.

When Smith picks up two more wins, he will become the winningest coach in South Jersey by passing Ross’ 601. This will be worth a column in itself when you recall the days Highland basically told the rest of the state to bug off and got in all kinds of hot water with the NJSIAA.

Trentonian State

Wresting Ratings

1. South Planfield

2. Bound Brook

3. Bergen Catholic

4. Phillipsburg

5. Brick Memorial

6. Southern

7. Jackson

8. Delbarton

9. St. Peter’s

10. Kittatinny

Trentonian Area

Rankings

1. North Hunterdon (3-1)

2. Hunterdon Central (5-0)

3. Pennsbury (9-2)

4. Voorhees (9-2)

5. Hopewell Valley (6-1)

6. Shawnee (6-0)

7. No. Burlington (4-0)

8. Cherokee (5-2)

9. Delaware Valley (3-3)

10. Cinnaminson (4-0)

11. Allentown (5-1)

12. Moorestown (5-4)

13. Steinert (3-2)

14, Truman (7-5)

15. Nottingham (7-3)

16. So. Brunswick (8-4)

17. Bordentown (5-6)

18. Robbinsville (5-0)

19. Burlington City (3-3)

20. Notre Dame (8-4)

20. Delran (3-3)

HIGHLIGHT MATCHES

Wednesday: Nottingham at Bordentown; Steinert at Robbinsville; Delaware Valley at Hunterdon Central; Voorhees at North Hunterdon; Pennsbury at Council Rock South, Delran at Cinnaminson.